Chapter 2 - The Preservation of Truth
The ride in the ambulance was a kaleidoscope of blue lights and the smell of antiseptic.
Wyatt held my hand so tight I thought he might break it,
his tears falling onto my stained blue dress.
I couldn't speak,
my jaw felt locked in a cage of agony,
but my mind was sharper than it had ever been.
Every time I closed my eyes,
I saw my mother’s laughter,
a haunting loop that played against the back of my eyelids.
When we reached the emergency room,
the bright lights felt like needles stabbing into my brain.
A flurry of nurses and doctors surrounded me,
their voices urgent and clipped.
“Possible orbital fracture,”
someone shouted,
while another began to cut away the silk of my dress.
I reached out and grabbed the sleeve of the lead surgeon,
Dr. Aris,
with a strength I didn't know I possessed.
“Wait,”
I croaked,
the word feeling like broken glass in my throat.
He stopped,
looking down at me with a mixture of pity and professional focus.
“Don't clean it yet,”
I whispered,
pointing to the blood and the grit that was still embedded in my skin.
“Preserve everything,
the debris,
the brick dust,
take photos of the patterns.”
Dr. Aris frowned,
his brow furrowing in confusion.
“Sadie,
we need to treat the wound to prevent infection.”
“Document it first,”
I insisted,
my voice gaining a cold,
hard edge.
“This was not an accident,
this was an attempted murder.”
I looked at Wyatt,
who was standing in the doorway,
his clothes torn and his face bruised from the fight with my father.
“The electrician,”
I said,
remembering the man in the utility truck.
“He saw it all,
Wyatt,
find him.”
The doctor signaled to a nurse to bring a forensic kit,
realizing this wasn't a standard domestic dispute.
They took high-resolution photos of the jagged laceration,
the way the skin had split under the weight of the brick.
They collected the tiny fragments of red clay that had been driven into my cheekbone.
As they worked,
the physical pain began to ebb,
replaced by a cold,
calculating fire.
I knew my family,
I knew how they operated.
My father would claim he tripped,
or that I had attacked him first.
My mother would play the grieving parent,
weeping over her daughter's "unstable" behavior.
Melanie would lie through her teeth,
claiming Wyatt was the one who went berserk.
But they didn't know about the witnesses.
They didn't know about the electrician who had stopped his truck.
They didn't know about the two neighbors who had been watching from behind their hedges.
And they certainly didn't know about the elderly man in the window.
While the doctors prepped me for surgery to save my eye,
a police officer entered the room.
Officer Miller,
a man with tired eyes and a notebook that had seen too much.
He started to ask me questions,
but I stopped him.
“My father hit me with a brick,”
I said,
each word a deliberate strike.
“My mother and sister watched and laughed.”
“And there is a man in the attic of that house,”
I added,
my voice trembling slightly.
“He saw everything,
and I think he’s in danger.”
Miller looked at me skeptically,
noting that the house was only registered to Gregory and Brenda Davis.
“There’s no one else living there,
Ms. Davis,”
he said gently.
“Check the attic,”
I whispered as the anesthesia began to pull me under.
“Check the old records,
check the will.”
As the world went dark for the second time that day,
I felt a strange sense of peace.
May you like
The face they tried to destroy was now a map of their crimes.
And I would make sure every line was read in court.
